Saturday, March 7, 2009

What Do Watches, Chocolate and Banks Have in Common?...




A large group of friends and I spent the last weekend of February in Geneva, Switzerland! It was my first opportunity to really travel and it was an unforgettable experience. (I feel like I've been saying that a lot while I've been here!)




We flew in on Thursday night and it was an adventure in itself to find our hostel. Luckily, since we had a big group, we got a whole 12-bed room all to ourselves. Since we arrived late, we did not see much of the city on Thursday, but we woke up very early on Friday and headed to the station to catch a bus to the nearest ski slope.




For those of you who are wondering if you missed the part of my life where I learned how to ski, you didn't.... Before this trip, I had only skied once before, and no lessons were involved. When I found out that everyone I was going with was either an avid skier or snowboarder, my best option looked like tagging along for the day.




We ended up taking a very scenic, hour-long bus ride to the French Alps. I was not sure what to expect given my circumstances, but I decided that rather than spending a day sitting in the lodge, I would give skiing a shot, hoping that I would remember a little something from my first experience.




You only live once right?




We were able to rent all of our gear at the mountain and then we headed onto the slopes. I had a pretty rocky start, I think that I was more nervous because of the height and how steep the slope looked rather than the actual act of skiing. After a lot of help and motivation from Danny, I was able to make it down for my first run. (Not without a good number of wipe outs...)




After another sloppy run down the same trail, I split off from the more experienced skiers and spent some time with some other beginners on the bunny slopes. This was exactly what I needed. It was so funny to watch the lines of 3-6 year olds flying past me following their instructor.




The view of the mountains was especially breathtaking from the top of this slope. I could have spent hours just admiring the natural beauty. After a few practice runs and a lunch break, we finally felt confident enough to tackle the real slope again.




A few more tries later I made it down without falling at all and eventually was even able to pick up some speed.




The adrenaline rush, perfect skiing conditions and beautiful scenery created an unreal combination and an amazing day!




That night, upon returning to Geneva, we grabbed a quick bite to eat and hung out at the hostel for awhile. You can have a lot of fun with a big group of crazy people! Then we headed to a close bar and met some locals, it was a very cool atmosphere.




We woke up early again on Saturday to check out of the hostel and then spent the day walking around the city. We lucked out and had beautiful blue skies and sun all day. The most fun was a boat tour of Lake Geneva. The town and surrounding mountains were gorgeous from the lake. It was a relaxing way to see a lot of sights.







After the tour we walked around old city, saw a lot of watch shops and Swiss banks.




We sat down for lunch at a cute side-street cafe where we had cheese fondue that was incredible! It was a delicious lunch.

headed to the UN headquarters and the Red Cross museum. Unfortunately, by the time we found the museum it had closed. We were all very tired, so we decided to go to the hostel, pick up our stuff and head to the airport. In the airport everyone stocked up on Swiss Chocolate (which even I thought was pretty delicious) I bought a bar of white chocolate with almonds for myself, any kind of Swiss chocolate can be very dangerous!!

Even though it was a great trip, we were all very happy to be back in Barcelona. I'm very excited to do more travelling though, the more you do it, the more addicting it gets!!

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